Molten
Salt Reactors or "MSRs"
are liquid-fueled reactors that can be used for production of electricity,
actinide burning, production of hydrogen, and the production of "fissile
fuels."

Electricity
production and waste "burn-down" are expected to be the primary
missions for the Molten
Salt Reactor.

Fissile,
fertile, and fission isotopes are dissolved in a high-temperature molten
fluoride salt with a very high boiling point (1,400 C) that is both the
reactor fuel and the coolant. The near-atmospheric-pressure molten fuel salt
flows through the reactor core.

Traditional
Molten
Salt Reactor designs have
a graphite core that results in a thermal to epithermal neutron spectrum.

In
the core of the Molten
Salt Reactor is where
fission occurs - within the flowing molten salt which is the "fuel"
and is heated to approximately 700° C., after which it flows into a primary
heat exchanger where the heat is transferred to a secondary molten salt
coolant. The fuel salt then flows back to the reactor core. The clean
salt in the secondary heat transport system transfers the heat from the
primary heat exchanger to a high-temperature Brayton
cycle which converts the
heat energy into electricity. The Brayton
cycle may use either
nitrogen or helium as a working gas.

Energy Cheaper and Cleaner than Coal Through Liquid
Fluoride Reactors
Imagine, energy that is both cheaper than coal and cleaner than coal - and can
solve more problems than just global warming.

The
Liquid
Fluoride Reactor - also
known as Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor or "LFTR." is an alternative energy source that is not well known to the public.
The LFTR uses inexpensive thorium as a fuel, which is transformed to
uranium-233 and through nuclear fission, generates heat and power at a cost
far less than coal
fired power plants.

Environmental Concerns

The rising cost of energy and threat of climate change is a concern to many.
The US annually imports over $400 billion of oil from foreign suppliers - many
from countries whose governments that are not friendly to the U.S.

Global
warming and climate change has been linked to melting glaciers which provides
fresh water to millions of people.

Global
warming and climate change has been linked to the ice melt in both the Arctic
and Antarctic - where much of the ocean's algae is produced and provides the
foundation of the ocean's food chain.

Global warming and climate change is linked to deforestation and
desertification - causing further losses of fresh water supplies.

Global warming and climate change has been linked to declining food/crop
production.

Fisheries are collapsing - some fish such as tuna, cod, swordfish facing
extinction.

The global population contributes to demand on finite resources. The world's
population of almost 7 billion people is growing and leading to competition
for dwindling food, water, and energy resources that may lead to famine,
plague and eventually wars and world war.

The US and other industrialized nations' birth rates are stable and even
declining - and less than the population replacement rates. Countries that are
prosperous are more sustainable.

Electrical
energy provides power for clean water supplies, sanitation, lighting,
refrigeration, cooking, communications, healthcare/hospitals and
schools/education. It has been shown that when a country has at least 2,000
kwh per year/per capita, that there is prosperity for the people in that
country and the population stabilizes. The U.S. generates approximately
12,000 kWh per year, per household.

Economists
study the relationship between the economic damage from carbon taxes (Cap
and Trade) against the
economic damage done from greenhouse
gas emissions and
anthropogenic climate change. Raising the carbon tax too fast will damage the
economy. Europe’s $50 billion Cap
and Trade has not yet
reversed emissions growth of greenhouse
gas emissions. And,
developing nations will not accept carbon taxes that limit their economic
growth.

Even
global warming contrarians can support the economic benefits of energy that is
cheaper
than coal.

This
would cause the closings of coal
fired power plants and
the end of their dumping of millions of tons of greenhouse
gas emissions into our
atmosphere every year..... not to mention their hundreds of thousands of tons
of mercury emissions they are dumping into our environment that is poisoning
our planet and all living things.

Because Liquid
Fluoride Reactor fuel is not pressurized and because total loss of power or control will allow
a freeze-plug to melt, gravitationally draining all fuel salt into a dump
tray, where it cools convectively.

10. are proliferation resistant, because their U-233 fuel also contains U-232
decay products that emit strong gamma radiation, hazardous to any bomb
builders who might somehow seize control of the power plant for the many
months necessary needed to extract uranium.

11. plutonium and other actinides remain in the salt until it is fissioned -
unlike today's solid fuel reactors, which must refuel long before these
long-lived radiotoxic elements are consumed, because of radiation and thermal
stress damage to the zirconium-encased solid fuel rods.

Today's
electric utility industry was "born" in the 1930's, when fossil fuel
prices were cheap, and the cost of wheeling the electricity via transmission
power lines, was also cheap. "Central" power plants could be located
hundreds of miles from the load centers, or cities, where the electricity was
needed. These extreme inefficiencies and cheap fossil fuel prices have added a
considerable economic and environmental burden to the consumers and the planet.

Centralized
energy is found in the form of electric utility companies that generate power
from "central" power plants. Central power plants are highly
inefficient, averaging only 33% net system efficiency. This means that the power
coming to your home or business - including the line losses and transmission
inefficiencies of moving the power - has lost 75% to as much as 80% energy it
started with at the "central" power plant. These losses and
inefficiencies translate into significantly increased energy expenses by the
residential and commercial consumers.

The
electric power generation, transmission and distribution system (the electric
"grid") is changing and evolving from the electric grid of the 19th
and 20th centuries, which was inefficient, highly-polluting, very expensive and
“dumb.”

The
"old" way of generating and distributing energy resembles this slide:

The electric grid of the 21st century (see slide below) will be Decentralized,
Smart, Efficient and provide "carbon
free energy" and “pollution
free power”to customers who remain on the electric grid. The
electric grid of the future will be comprised of both Onsite
Power Generation plants
that are fueled/powered with natural gas and renewable energy technologies such
as;

“spending
hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars every year for oil,
much of it from the Middle East, is just about the single stupidest thing that
modern society could possibly do. It’s very difficult to think of anything
more idiotic than that.”